Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
Every flagged citation has been read. The 7 confirmed treatments listed below agree that the Portal-to-Portal Act displaced Anderson's rule making pre-principal-activity walking time compensable, while its inadequate-records burden-shifting framework remains good law.
2,007 later cases cite Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.; 276 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Superseded by Statute
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The Supreme Court confirmed that the Portal-to-Portal Act repudiated Anderson's holding that walking from a factory time clock to a workstation was compensable.
IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
it is indisputable that the Portal-to-Portal Act evinces Congress’ intent to repudiate Anderson’s holding that such walking time was compensable under the FLSA.
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The court held that the Portal-to-Portal Act superseded Anderson's compensable walking-time rule.
Jordan v. IBP, Inc. · M.D. Tenn. · filed
Congress enacted the Portal-to-Portal Act several years later to amend FLSA and further address what activities constitute work under FLSA. The statute effectively superseded the holding in Mt. Clemens Pottery that time spent walking constitutes work and provided that FLSA does not require an employer to compensate employees for “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which [an] employee is employed to perform.”
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The court held that the Portal-to-Portal Act overrode Anderson to the extent it expanded FLSA liability for employee walking time.
Lugo v. Farmer's Pride Inc. · E.D. Pa. · filed
Shortly after the Anderson decision, Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act, which overruled Anderson to the extent the decision expanded employers’ liability under the FLSA for time employees spent walking.
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The court held that the Portal-to-Portal Act abrogated Anderson's employer-premises walking rule by excepting walking and preliminary or postliminary activities from FLSA coverage.
Weissman v. Tyson Prepared Foods, Inc. · Wisconsin Court of Appeals · filed
We recognize that this language originally derives from Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), which was abrogated by the Portal-to-Portal Act, amending the FLSA. Compare Anderson, 328 U.S. at 690-91 (“Since the statutory workweek includes all time during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer's premises, on duty or at a prescribed workplace, the time spent [walking from time clocks near a factory entrance to their workstations] must be accorded appropriate compensation.”) with 29 U.S.C. 254 (excepting from the FLSA coverage walking on the employer's premises to and from the location of the employee's “principal activity or activities” and activities that are “preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities”).
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The court held that the Portal-to-Portal Act invalidated Anderson's treatment of pre-principal-activity walking as compensable.
Abadeer v. Tyson Foods, Inc. · M.D. Tenn. · filed
Tyson’s selective quotations — such as the Supreme Court’s statement that “compensable working time [is] limited to the minimum time necessarily spent in walking at an ordinary rate along the most direct route,” id. — are irrelevant in light of the Portal Act. In this passage and others Tyson draws on to cobble together its argument, the Court addressed the compensability of time spent walking from the time clock to a work area. The Portal Act, passed less than a year after Anderson, invalidated the Supreme Court’s interpretation by deeming preliminary — and thus non-compensable — walking time that preceded the employee’s first principal activity. See 29 U.S.C. § 254(a).
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The court held that Congress swiftly abrogated Anderson's broad workweek rule through the Portal-to-Portal Act.
Scalia v. AWP, Inc. · W.D. Mich. · filed
The term “workweek” was also given broad meaning. It covered “all time during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty or at a prescribed workplace.” Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 690-91 (1946). Based on this definition, the Court in Anderson concluded that “the time necessarily spent by employees walking from timeclocks near the factory entrance gate to their workstations must be treated as part of the workweek.” Alvarez, 546 U.S. at 25 (citing Mt. Clemens Pottery, 328 U.S. at 691-92). Employers, therefore, had to pay employees for their commute time. 2. The PPA amends the FLSA Congress swiftly abrogated Mt. Clemens Pottery holding by passing the PPA to amend the FLSA.
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In a nonprecedential opinion, the court held that the Portal-to-Portal Act superseded Anderson's statutory-workweek definition but left its burden-shifting framework intact.
Wilson v. DM Excavating, LLC · Sixth Circuit · filed
Although Mt. Clemens Pottery was superseded by statute as to its definition of the statutory work week, Integrity Staffing Sols., Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27, 31 (2014), the burden-shifting framework remains good law.
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